| 1500s |
|
Flatbreads covered in oil and various toppings, from figs and apricots to herbs, olives, and lamb, have been around for thousands of years. But the first recognizable pizzas likely appeared in 16th-century Naples, where local street vendors offer flat cakes they call pizza (which means “pie”). It is specifically a street food, and is seldom cooked in homes or restaurants. |
| 1750s |
|
Between 1700 and 1750, Naples’s population doubles to 400,000. Lazzaroni, the working poor, make up a huge portion of that number, and these workers—mostly porters, messengers, and laborers—need cheap food to eat. They buy pizzas from street vendors, who carry whole pies in large boxes and will cut off slices to order. The most common toppings: garlic, lard, and salt. Some vendors also offer horse milk cheese, whitebait (small fish, usually fried), basil, and a new ingredient just introduced from the New World, tomatoes. |
| 1831 |
|
As pizza is still considered a cheap food for peasants and workers only, gourmets don’t think much of it. While traveling through Italy, Samuel Morse (the inventor of the telegraph) writes about the dish in his diary. He calls it a “species of the most nauseating cake, covered over with slices of tomatoes, and sprinkled with little fish and black pepper and I know not what other ingredients, it altogether looks like a piece of bread that has been taken reeking out of the sewer.” |
| 1889 |
|
Various kingdoms and states united to become the Kingdom of Italy in 1871, and in 1889 King Umberto I and Queen Consort Margherita of Savoy tour the country and stop in Naples. Tired of the French-style banquets served in their honor, they call for local food to be cooked for them. The king’s staff seeks out Raffaele Esposito, the owner of a popular tavern in Naples, to prepare the local delicacy, pizza. The pizzaiolo (pizza maker) obliges, preparing three pies for the royal couple: one with cheese and basil, one with whitebait, and one he invented for the occasion—the Margherita, with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil representing the red, white, and green of the Italian flag. (This also marks the first ever pizza delivery.) |
| 1880s–1920s |
|
In a 40-year period, more than four million Italian immigrants settle in New York, primarily in the New York/New Jersey area. Émigrés from Naples bring pizza with them to America. |
| Late 1800s |
|
Italian-American peddlers in New York City, Trenton, Chicago, and Philadelphia imitate the street vendors who roamed Naples more than a century earlier, carrying around freshly baked pizzas and charging by the slice. The cost: about 2¢ each. (Instead of boxes, they carried their wares in metal washtubs.) Around this same time, cafés and restaurants in Italian neighborhoods in big cities start selling pizzas. |
| 1904 |
|
An article in the Boston Journal marks the first time pizza is mentioned in an American publication. |
| 1905 |
|
An Italian grocery store in Manhattan called Lombardi’s opened in 1897, and in 1905 an employee named Filippo Milone converts it into a restaurant; pizza is the only item on the menu. In other words, it’s the first pizzeria in the United States, selling individual-sized “tomato pies” at lunchtime to men who worked in nearby factories. |
| 1910 |
|
Pizzerias continue to spring up around Manhattan and Brooklyn. The first pizza parlor outside of the city, Joe’s Tomato Pies, opens in Trenton, New Jersey. |
| 1925 |
|
Frank Pepe opens the first pizzeria outside of the New York/New Jersey area. After working as a street vendor for 20 years, he opens Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana on Wooster Street in New Haven, Connecticut. (It’s still there.) |
| 1939 |
|
Pizza hits the West Coast when Casa D’Amore opens its first location in Los Angeles. |
| 1943 |
|
Restaurateurs Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo, along with chef Rudy Malnati, develop a new kind of pizza—Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. They introduce it at their restaurant, Pizzeria Uno in Chicago. |
| 1945–1950 |
|
U.S. servicemen returning from being stationed in Italy during World War II bring home a taste for the Italian dish called pizza. Expanding its popularity beyond Italian neighborhoods, hundreds of pizzerias begin to spring up across America. |
| 1947 |
|
In writing about the pizzeria boom, the New York Times says that pizza “could be as popular a snack as the hamburger if Americans only knew more about it.” |
| 1950 |
|
Until now, the most popular pizza toppings in America have been sausage, bacon, and salami. In 1950 a New Haven, Connecticut, pizzeria called The Spot becomes the first to offer pepperoni. |
| 1950 |
|
Celentano Brothers markets the first commercially available frozen, bake-at-home pizzas. |
| 1950s–early 1960s |
|
Small mom-and-pop pizza places start to feel the squeeze when major regional and national chains are founded…and quickly expand. Among them: Sacramento’s Shakey’s Pizza (1954), Wichita’s Pizza Hut (1958), Detroit’s Little Caesars (1959), and Michigan-based Domino’s (1960). |
| 1961 |
|
Chef Boyardee markets a product called Complete Pizza, a make-your-own pizza kit that includes crust mix, sauce, and no-refrigeration-needed cheese and sausage. The company advertises it with a TV commercial, making it the first television ad for pizza. |
| 1962 |
|
Sam Panopoulos, proprietor of the Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, introduces “Hawaiian pizza”—a cheese-and-sauce pie topped with pineapple and ham. It quickly spreads across North America. |
| 1977 |
|
Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre opens its first location in San Jose, California, providing the unique combination of pizza with kid-entertaining animatronic characters. |
| 1994 |
|
Pizza Hut launches PizzaNet, marking the first time customers can order pizza online. |
| 1995 |
|
Pizza Hut figures out how to get more cheese into a pizza, unveiling the Stuffed Crust Pizza, in which a ring of mozzarella is baked into the outer crust. The chain spends $45 million on an ad campaign centered on a commercial featuring some guy named Donald Trump. |
| 2001 |
|
Pizza Hut arranges to deliver to outer space. As part of a supply load to the International Space Station, the chain sends a six-inch salami-and-cheese pie. Why so small? So it can fit into the ISS’s tiny oven. |
| 2016 |
|
Thanks to a $125,000 grant from NASA to develop food preparation technology for astronauts on future Mars missions, pizza enters the 21st century. The robotics company BeeHex uses the grant money to develop Chef 3D, a robot that can “3-D print” a pizza. Special “ink tanks” full of ingredients lay out dough, sauce, and cheese, then it gets popped into an oven to cook for just five minutes. |
